The sign of a lazy creative team

THE ABOVE-PICTURED billboard from Intermountain Healthcare tells us that Braxton Hicks, more commonly known as false labor, is not the name of a pop star.

Har!

​Surely that’s enough to convince you to deliver your next baby at an Intermountain Healthcare facility.

This is the kind of creative work--with apologies for my abuse of the words creative and work--from people unwilling to learn a product well enough, and to understand the market deeply enough, to create an honest, relevant, compelling message.

It is not the first time this would-be strategy has reared its ugly head. Years ago a bank investment division depicted a herd of cattle over the headline, “If this is your idea of watered stock, we should talk.” Har! An investment software publisher showed silver candlesticks and said if you thought they were Japanese Candlesticks you needed their product. Har! Over a headline about waffle slab construction, a construction company showed a guy biting into a syrupy waffle and added, “We speak construction so you don’t have to.” Har!

Making a joke of a word that’s new to you isn’t advertising. It’s work avoidance. Come on, creative people. At the rates you charge, your client deserves real effort. Learn the product. Know what matters to the market. Then come up with advertising that actually says​ something.